


The End of the World is Nigh, but Not Today

by Lynffles, Yukitsu



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim, First Time, M/M, Pacific Rim AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2743814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynffles/pseuds/Lynffles, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukitsu/pseuds/Yukitsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of pieces set in the Pacific Rim universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Refusal x And x Challenge

"We're getting you a co-pilot," were not the words Kurapika wanted to hear upon being summoned to the marshal's office. "You're to participate in the screening matches tomorrow at oh-six-hundred," following immediately after was just as unwelcome. His _partner_ , his cousin, the other half of his soul was in the same room, for god's sake, a solid, calming presence at his back, and it was cruel and disingenuous of them to fling this at him when they knew very well that he wouldn't be able to refuse or risk being turned out of the service for insubordination.  
  
"I already have a co-pilot," Kurapika gritted out with barely-leashed fury as the marshal and Pairo exchanged looks over his shoulder. The blond kept his eyes on his superior, and did not react to furtive expressions of knowing exasperation being flung through him and at him, although he continued to seethe inwardly; he was right there. _Pairo_ was right there, and his breath caught, rage nearly making him choke on air, as the marshal shook his head and said, bluntly enough to be nearly rude, "No, you don't."  
  
A hand on his shoulder stopped the explosion--Pairo's, the only reason he didn't turn around and bite it off. "We've been through this. Kurapika, you know I can't fight anymore."  
  
"I know," he managed to say, despite a bigger part of him feeling like he was drowning in his anger and questions of _why_ this was happening now. "I know," he repeated helplessly, "but I also know as well as you do that I'll never find anyone good enough."  
  
"You're not even trying," the marshal pointed out. "Look, I've held off on pressuring you in order to spare your feelings, but we've all waited long enough. I won't have this Shatterdome's Jaeger rusting in the garage, I will not allow Pairo back into that cockpit only to make his injury worse, and I refuse to let you kill yourself piloting solo. You will attend the screening matches tomorrow--that's an order."  
  
And that was that. He could still disobey--and get court-martialed and discharged--but some sane part of his mind was thankfully aware that he should be more gracious about accepting the concessions already being granted to him. His sullen "yes, sir" only got him a sigh and Pairo hastily ushering him out of the marshal's office before the man could decide to change his mind, after all.  
  
"... You think I'm being melodramatic, don't you?" he muttered as they were making the trek back to their quarters.  
  
Pairo turned his head, eyes seeking him out, and Kurapika's gut clenched painfully at the way the other boy's eyelids twitched minutely in a futile attempt to sharpen his focus. A reflex. His cousin probably wasn't aware that he was doing it at all.  
  
"I'd be acting the same if our positions were reversed," Pairo replied. "But I don't think it'll hurt to take a look at tomorrow's candidates. At the very least, you can show the marshal why you're being so adamant about it," he added, tone wry with an emotion that Kurapika couldn't immediately place.  
  
Proving the marshal wrong, Kurapika thought sourly, was something he expected he wouldn't have much trouble doing.  
  
\-----  
  
He was right, and Kurapika realized, to his increasing dismay and vexation, that he'd much rather prefer to be wrong, despite his voluble objections. He was more than aware that he needed a co-pilot, after all, and was probably the most anxious to find one, out of everyone in the base. He couldn't even find pleasure in vindication, because it meant looking forward to the possibility of being benched, and that was making it harder for him to keep a lid on his temper when none of the candidates were proving themselves capable of lasting more than three seconds against him on the sparring mats.  
  
There was just no _connection_. None of Pairo's skill, for one thing, and not a single shred of that inexplicable connectedness that made sparring with his cousin so exhilarating. Drift partners had to be equal in skill, and they had to be able to see through each other's moves quickly enough to execute the correct counters that could turn a one-sided slaughter into something that more resembled a deadly dance. It was both challenge and conversation, a silent dialogue between the combatants, and proof that they could successfully be linked in the most intimate ways imaginable, and Kurapika was finding none of that in the candidates the technicians had picked out for him.  
  
The eleventh unfortunate candidate went flying over his shoulder after two more moves, and the blond declared his win with one end of his staff poised over the man's neck. Groans of disappointment echoed around the room, and he ignored the deregatory banter of bets being exchanged in favor of shooting a scowl at the marshal. The man merely raised an unimpressed brow at him before calling the next--and last candidate forward.  
  
Lucifer, Kuroro. Kurapika vaguely recalled the sparsely-detailed personnel files he'd been forced to peruse and wondered if this one had been left for last because of the difference in their physiques. He wasn't built like a typical ranger, and most of the previous candidates had also been on the leaner side. Lucifer, in contrast, was tall and heavy. The black tank top and jogging pants left his arms bare and threw the outline of his torso into sharp relief against the brown walls and floor matting.  
  
 _Muscled_ , Kurapika thought disdainfully. Possibly slow. He wasn't going to start underestimating his opponent just because the man had the kind of build the rest of the world believed rangers _should_ possess, but then Lucifer gave him a half-smile, friendly and amused--the self-assured, 'I know you just defeated nearly a dozen ranger candidates at the top of their game, but I'm going to end your winning streak now' kind of amused, and Kurapika resolved right there and then that he was going to punch this guy's grin off his face in a second, co-pilot screening be damned.  
  
"Bow," the marshal intoned as they took their places across the mats. Kurapika bent his neck stiffly, unwillingly, then twirled his staff--requisite, but useless showmanship, in his opinion, especially when done by a weaker opponent. It did serve its purposes in intimidation when done by someone stronger, and the length of hardened wood carved arcs in the air as he manipulated it expertly.  
  
Lucifer copied his bow and twirl with better grace and more flair, sending a murmur of appreciation rippling through the watching audience--and sending his mood plummeting from merely irritated to downright nasty. Kurapika's first attack was thus hastier and more savage than all his previous moves thus far; an added pivot on his leading foot where he'd normally only twist his body lent force enough to maim, even kill if struck against the head. Pairo would have disapproved.  
  
The blond was understandably surprised--dumbfounded, actually, when, instead of blocking like any properly-trained staff wielder would do, Lucifer ducked through and _under_ his swing. Too late he saw that he'd left himself wide open, having given both of his hands into that one attack, and he couldn't do more than brace himself and fold over Lucifer's shoulder as the man rammed it into his gut. Off-balance, out of breath, he was (humiliatingly) easily knocked flat on his back. He'd managed to keep his hold on his staff, at least, but it was only a tiny point in his favor when he had his opponent's weapon angled over his own throat.  
  
There was an astonished silence for all of five seconds before the peanut gallery erupted into a confused mass of buzzing, exclamations and imprecations. Kurapika stared up at Lucifer's dark eyes--gray, he realized suddenly, and far closer than expected--the man was literally sitting on him.  
  
"Stop looking at this as the farce you seem to think it is and fight me properly," Lucifer said, voice low and just loud enough that only he could hear. Kurapika blinked, then struggled to formulate a suitably snappy reply, but the man was already rising to his feet and stepping back into a ready stance in one smooth movement.  
  
Kurapika pursed his lips and set to heaving himself upright. He'd been waiting for his loss to be announced, but the marshal's face remained impassive. He hadn't said anything, and wasn't going to say anything, if the blond was reading that granite-like facade correctly.  
  
A point against him, then, and not the whole match. He was being given another chance... or was this what they had been waiting for all along? Something was happening, stirring to life as he slowly took position, fingers carefully and deliberately sliding over the smooth grain of his staff. Deep breaths, _focus_ \--his earlier anger had abruptly, miraculously drained away with Lucifer--Kuroro's admonishment, leaving nothing to blind him against the realization that he might have found someone he could fight _with_.  
  
Kurapika settled into a more defensive stance this time, staff held upright. He thought he saw something like approval glint in the other man's eyes for the briefest second before Kuroro lunged. He blocked the first strike, and the next four, then took the barest pause in the flurry of attacks as an invitation to counter with an upward swing. Lucifer had to lean back to avoid it, and he pressed his advantage, launching a barrage of quick thrusts. An expectant hush had fallen over the combat room, broken only by the clacking of their weapons and the occasional shout. Expectant, waiting to see what upset the newcomer might pull next--  
  
Kurapika was ready for it, when it came, the slightest shifting of balance in the other man's shoulders, arms rising for an overhead strike--he threw himself into a roll and shoved an arm through the space between Kuroro's feet. The staff finished it, knocking Kuroro's knee askew, and Kurapika came out of the roll grappling his opponent's legs, with Kuroro blinking up at him in undisguised surprise.  
  
"One-one," the blond declared with a feral grin.


	2. Drift x Compatibility x Breakfast

**[ Emperor Time Test Drift in 15 minutes. ]**  
  
He wasn't nervous, not exactly; this wasn't his first Drift by far, and it was probably past his hundredth if he had been counting. Apart from the inane luck of having survived drowning and inhaling Kaiju blue, Kuroro had been marked during training and previous tests for his ability to Drift with just about anyone and attain good if not great compatibility scores. It was his first time with someone who adamantly disliked him, though, and despite their obvious compatibility on the training mat, Kuroro wasn't quite sure if Kurapika wouldn't reject him through the neural bridge as well.  
   
None of his fellow trainees had actively hated him, or at least he was fairly sure no one with such passion. His supervisor then had thought it would be a good idea to use him as a practice board for his peers, to get them used to the Drift before being assigned to their permanent partners and Jaegers -- or as permanent as being a Jaeger pilot could be -- but for the method backfiring on them.  
  
It wasn't really his fault, he thought ruefully as an engineer clamped the black armor over his arm. If you let a rookie Drift with someone of his background, did they really think the person would be eager for a second dose of the experience, even for a possibility of a repeat with someone else? It took them a while to realize the problem, too, and had lost three guys who had quit from the program.  
  
"Not too tight, Lucifer?" one of the guys asked, holding an improbably large wrench in his hands. That was hopefully not for him.  
  
"It's all right," he answered with a grin, patting his stomach. "It might change with some breakfast, though." The man laughed, put the wrench down, and twisted something on Kuroro's back that made him wince. There was no concept of day or night in the dome, what with it having no windows and the lights on full shine at every hour, hour after hour, but Kuroro always knew when it was time to eat with the hungry veracity of a man who exerted himself physically and to the extreme.  
   
Well, he resumed his earlier thought as he was propelled to the helm without further ado, things on his back still clicking and whirring lightly against his muscles. Well, at least it had gotten him a reliable first partner, someone who came from the same place and was broken in all the same ways. It was really too bad, about Paku and the Skill Hunter.  
  
"Are you ready?" Kurapika asked, stepping into the helm, footsteps unbelievably light considering the bulk of their suits. Despite the question, Kurapika's tone implied that the only viable answer was 'yes', so Kuroro nodded benignly and stepped into his spot, right on 02. It was a little strange to be on this side, to have someone on his right instead of his left like he'd gotten used to, but it wasn't awful.  
  
"How long has it been since you Drifted?" Kurapika was asking him again, and Kuroro smiled and clapped the helmet over his head in lieu of an answer. Beside him, Kurapika did the same, movements calm and methodical.  
  
"Not since the Hunter went down, so about nine months," he answered when the fluid had drained away. "I was in recovery for a few weeks, and then they tried to put me in therapy. It took them a while to realize that I wasn't as traumatized as they expected. I was out cold, you know," Kuroro added, reaching for the buttons overhead. "When it happened." He hadn't been connected to Paku when she died, he meant, although it had been painful to wake up to his head emptier than usual and broken or fractured bones in four different places. It was useless to keep the details from this new partner, given that Kurapika would be stepping into his head in a few minutes, but he left it at that. "And you? Pairo's only been decommissioned for a couple of months, so yours is more recent."  
  
"He's not decommissioned," Kurapika snapped, bristling, and Kuroro thought he might advance just to punch Kuroro in the nose. He raised his arms in surrender.  
  
"I didn't mean that. I mean since he had to step down as a pilot."  
  
"That's not--"  
  
"--any better, I know," Kuroro interrupted, eyebrows rising. "But I didn't intend for it to be offensive. You just asked me about my dead partner and I didn't bite your head off, did I?"  
  
Kurapika had every appearance of violence, although well-restrained. Kuroro supposed he was just very bad at this supplication thing, considering the number of toes he'd stepped on since being dropped into the anti-Kaiju program some years before.  
  
"Kuroro's right, it's been a couple of months for Kurapika," their intercom piped. Kuroro had no trouble placing the sweet, quiet voice as that of Pairo's, having met the man recently. Pairo had had a strong hand in the selection of the candidates for his replacement, which made Kuroro wonder if he had selected Kuroro specifically given the disaster of the other candidates that Kurapika had ripped through before him. He didn't have a technician's training, but he could see that he had been of a different caliber from all the rest. Less... new, and far more willing to gamble in the pursuit of a win.  
  
He had to give it to Pairo, though, Kuroro reflected. Kurapika's demeanor had changed completely at the gentle rebuke, toned down to huffy rather than just a point shy of systematic murder.  
  
"Are you going to watch the test?" Kurapika asked, switching on his side of the controls. He gave Kuroro a look, but said nothing else.  
  
"I am. Afterwards, I was thinking that we can have breakfast with Kuroro. We can tell him all about how the Emperor moves. It's different from the manual, certainly."  
  
And Kuroro really wanted to laugh, because that was Kurapika's face completely torn between protest and agreement. The blond frowned, pursed his lips, huffed under his breath, and muttered something that might have sounded like assent or gibberish.  
  
"Thanks, Pairo," he said cheerfully. "I'd like that."  
   
There was a chuckle that they were meant to hear, before Pairo's voice became more somber, a sign of the eminent presence behind him. "Neural handshake engaging in fifteen seconds."  
   
That was it, then, no more chance to back out of the entire thing. Kuroro caught Kurapika's eye and nodded, turning to look at the familiar helm of a Jaeger and taking a deep breath.  
   
It hit him like ice water to the face. The usual memories sprung up unbidden through his head, images and sensations of long ago -- a garbage dump of a city along a dirty coast, living in the streets with his gang, fighting all day and night, the Kaiju attack some years ago, drifting down a sea normally black but now blue with Kaiju blood, and his awakening and training. These were all images he was used to seeing, could shrug them off as an inconsequential part of his life. But then, despite his preparation, he braced as memories of his former Jaeger came to the front, memories of being of a mind with Pakunoda, their short period together, their fight with Hardhead, the blow that had knocked him out, and waking up to emptiness and agony. Always the waking with agony even in his dreams, and Kuroro gasped, held his breath, and forced himself to let the rabbit go.  
   
And before he knew it he was sifting through Kurapika's memories, sweet in comparison to the bitter ones he remembered from Paku, but tinged with a determined ferocity to protect and exterminate the threat. A rural clan, practically a fishing village, and the entire lot wiped out leaving two children to survive on their own. There was pain here as well, old and more recent, a possessiveness just a touch desperate and Kuroro realized he was going through two people's memories, because traces of Pairo's memories were still there. He wondered if after nine months, Paku was still at the forefront of his mind, but Kuroro forced himself to let that go as well.  
   
Reorienting himself to his body -- their body, one of them corrected the other -- was an easier chore. He felt around a bit, noted the sudden silence from Kurapika's end. Far less hostility, signs of what was probably remorse. For what, not being gracious? Kuroro's amusement shone through at Kurapika's annoyance, and then an exasperated resignation. Kurapika didn't need to be nice to him because of his past, he thought, emphasizing the idea to make sure Kurapika knew it, and there was a small nudge of agreement that pleased him.  
   
When it came to moving the Jaeger, it was difficult sometimes to recognize who was initiating the thought and the action. It was all the same to Kuroro, because now they were raising their arms, and slowly going through the motions of their stances with an ease that was like a breath of fresh air.  
   
"--a hundred percent compatibility," he heard eventually from the intercom, and grinned even as he felt Kurapika's chagrin through their connection. A curious mix of distress, relief, and guilt. What a complex individual Kurapika was, he thought amidst outraged denial. "Congratulations, you two. Let's see how well you can control the Emperor, now."  
   
"Yes, sir," Kuroro and Kurapika said at the same time.

  
  
Pairo was, as promised, ready with their breakfast the moment they stepped out of the lockers, gratefully back into their own clothes. The suits had improved a great deal over the past few years, but they were still cumbersome and Kuroro didn't much relish the metal band around his neck.  
   
"You did well," Pairo was telling Kurapika, surprisingly tall for someone of his disposition, although still shorter than Kuroro by a margin. Kurapika made a face at his towering companions and said something that Kuroro didn’t catch, but followed them to the table Pairo had apparently sequestered for them. Three plates of ration breakfast were there, still steaming.  
   
"Oh, so good," Kuroro commented after an eager minute of eating later. Kurapika was looking at him in mild disgust, eating with far more dignity than his new partner, and Pairo was giving him an amused look.  
   
"Have some mashed potatoes," Pairo said, passing him the pot.  
   
"Thanks," Kuroro replied, beaming with delight, and passed the pot back a moment later half-emptied of its contents. "I barely managed to make it in time for the match with you, you know," he added after a moment, finally noticing the attention his eating was getting. "And all the way here, the guys wouldn't give me anything more than a couple of fruit bars. And then of course, there's no eating before the Drift, unless you want to feel nauseated..."  
   
Kurapika’s eyebrows had risen past his blond bangs. “You just got here today?” he asked in disbelief.  
   
“Well, yes.” He chewed on a beefsteak and swallowed it, thinking about the past twelve hours and nodding to himself. “There was a landslide off the mountain range, and our dingy truck lost a wheel. A helicopter picked me up eventually. My things got whisked away to some room or another when I got here, too... I daresay I’ll see where it is later.”  
   
“I’ll take you there after,” Pairo offered at the same moment that Kurapika leaned back from the table, askance.  
   
“I had a lot of sleep on the way,” he reassured the blond, smiling because he could see exactly what Kurapika was thinking about. “I fought you in very good condition, I’m telling you. The hunger hit me in the Emperor, really.”  
   
“That’s not the point,” Kurapika said. “You got here from a long trip and instead of giving you a day to get your bearings, they shove you at the end of my stick.”  
   
“Speaking of the Emperor,” Pairo interrupted, a merry glint in his odd, faded eyes, “We were supposed to tell you all about her. But first, if you don’t mind, may we talk about the Skill Hunter first? We looked over your files, of course, but we’d like to know more about your experiences with her first hand.”  
   
By ‘we’, Kuroro assumed that Pairo meant that he had studied Kuroro’s files extensively. Prospective partners weren’t supposed to look over the candidate list themselves, to make sure that they fought their best.  
   
He mulled it over, fork resting on his lower lip in thought. “She was primarily Mark III, with body parts from the IV, V, and even a bit of I. We weren’t a very well-funded project so large parts like Jaeger limbs were touch and go and often contraband, but our engineers were resourceful and good at load balancing. I remember there was a bit of trouble rewiring the digital parts to work on nuclear. For example, her head and left arm are from the V series like yours, but the right was from the original draft.” He had loved the very idea of her, even if the other candidates were less than keen to pilot a patchwork Jaeger. He’d beaten out every competitor he had for the post and then some, until his Marshal had decided to let him have it just to stop him from outright murder.  
   
“Wouldn’t that mean that her parts might not match the activity you expect to do?” Kurapika asked, a little wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “The different generations had specific strengths, often with extreme opposing weaknesses.”  
   
“We were strong in hand to hand combat and grappling, but we did have some trouble with holding out because of the light legs,” Kuroro confirmed, nodding at Kurapika, noting the almost scholarly interest coming from his partner. “The feet and ankles were fine, but we often had to give ground to preserve her knees, so to speak. No lifting the Kaiju. She was fast for someone so top-heavy, though,” he added fondly.  
   
Pairo nodded, looked thoughtful for a moment, and nodded again. Kuroro had the impression that the younger man had meant to say something, but had changed his mind in the offing. “I take it you prefer mobility over heavy power?”  
   
“I do,” he answered, grinning.  
   
“Good,” Kurapika said in approval, the first that Kuroro might have received from him so far. For some reason or another, it felt a bit like a breakthrough. “It’s pointless to spec for just power when the Kaiju are getting bigger and stronger every time. It doesn’t make sense, and Jaeger strength scales badly the bigger they get.” The almost haughty way that was delivered gave Kuroro the feeling that Kurapika must have had some heated arguments about the issue with someone else in the past.  
   
Kuroro murmured his assent and picked up on the train. “It’s smarter to be prudent about it and strike hard and fast, yes. The Emperor’s known for her footwork, isn’t she?”  
   
“She is,” the blond said. The statement was delivered factually, but there was a slight, proud tilt to Kurapika’s head that Kuroro could read as genuine pride and pleasure. “The Mach Vs in general are very fast for a Jaeger, but we made some modifications to her joints to allow for flexibility. We could tumble if we had to.”  
   
He whistled, and for the first time since the meal started, he slowed down on putting food in his mouth. “And how does she sustain damage?”  
   
“As well as can be imagined,” Pairo said, and then clarified: “Her armor was reduced by about seven percent to reduce weight. She can take a hit, but you should try to avoid extended grappling and shoving contests.”  
   
“I’ll remember that.” Kuroro also remembered that grappling had been the problem in the Emperor’s last fight, too. The Kaiju had gotten a strangle hold on her, and while the Jaeger had finished that skirmish intact, part of its helm had cracked open, causing some injuries to the lead pilot. While not particularly crippled, Pairo had sustained enough damage to be removed from his post, both from the blows and from continuing the fight right after.  Maintaining the neural bridge and control of the Jaeger under such duress sometimes exacerbated the problem, which had been the case for Pairo.  
   
And now here Kuroro was. He stole a slice of beef from Kurapika’s plate, missing having his hand speared with a fork by a hair’s breadth, and popped it into his mouth. Kurapika gave him a dirty look.  
   
“Kurapika, is it all right if you got me some medicine from Leorio?” Pairo asked, smiling. “I forgot it in all the excitement. He’s in the clinic down the hall today, not in the barracks.” Kurapika seemed like he was about to say something to that, but Kuroro was also quickly realizing that Kurapika adored Pairo in his protective, prickly way and would never say no to him.  
   
“You wanted to tell me something earlier,” Kuroro said preemptively the moment Kurapika was out of hearing range, pushing his empty plate away. “But you stopped. I’m guessing that’s the real reason you picked me for Kurapika and rigged the matches with piss poor candidates.”  
   
Pairo looked surprised, but didn’t deny the accusation, shrugged his shoulders and put his hands on the table in front of him. “You’re unpredictable. I agree with Kurapika; the Kaiju only get harder to deal with and they adapt to us. I wanted him to have a partner who can think on his feet.”  
   
So it was Pairo’s attempt at protecting Kurapika, in his own way. Kuroro observed Pairo, the corner of his lips quirking up. “I could tell it was rigged. I know Kurapika has his suspicions, but I don’t think he wants to believe you could be that heavy handed. You could have benched him.”  
   
“You have a hundred percent Drift chance. And you needed a new Jaeger as well. Anyway, the Marshal agreed to it.”  He would have had to, Kuroro reflected, for Pairo’s gamble to have worked. This place had a lot more bite than one would initially have expected.  
   
“Two problems solved,” Kuroro agreed, shaking his head. “Is it nice, always being so underestimated?”  
   
“It has its uses,” Pairo commented lightly, brightening when Kurapika came into view again.  
   
“Pairo, you liar,” was the opening salvo, Kurapika looming over Pairo’s seated frame. “Leorio said you already took your medicine before breakfast. What did you talk to Kuroro about?”  
   
“You, naturally,” Kuroro answered in the young man’s stead. Pairo was laughing silently, covered his face with a hand. “He was telling me to ask you to take the Emperor outside for a test run. He’ll arrange it with the Marshal for us. Right, Pairo?”  
   
Kurapika looked at him suspiciously, knowing immediately that he was lying, but Kuroro shrugged back at him. Now that they were partners, they would be sharing heads anyway, and there was no lying in the Drift.


	3. Dialogue x Blue x Training

"When do we get a day off?"  
  
The question was an innocent one, of course, but the plaintive note made Kurapika pause in the middle of peeling off his circuitry suit. He frowned over his shoulder at Kuroro--the man was watching him, eyes intent on the question and the answer he could give, as if it was a matter of life and death.  
  
"Only your third day here and you already want to take a day off?" he scoffed, and went back to tugging his arms out of the suit's sleeves.  
  
"Well, not that I don't like training and all, but I do want to do other things, and given that eating, bathing, and sleeping takes up the other ten hours of my day--do we get weekends off, at least?"  
  
Kurapika didn't answer right away, and sat down on the bench between their lockers to pull the rest of the suit off his legs. He wondered if Kuroro would ask again, and was slightly surprised to hear the rustling sounds of his partner getting out of his own suit instead--apparently having decided to wait rather than pester him with the same question.  
  
He couldn't decide if he was more grateful or annoyed at the man's patience. "We're not required to train on Sundays," Kurapika answered eventually.  
  
"Hm." Kuroro plopped down beside him and started working his legs free of the skintight suit with practiced ease. "I'm sensing a 'but' here."  
  
"The marshal doesn't like us wandering too far from the Dome," the blond added after another measured pause. "The timer tells us when to expect the next attack, but we don't know for sure that the pattern won't deviate suddenly, and we have to be here if that happens."  
  
Kuroro hm-ed again and looked up with another of his amused half-smiles. "You don't get out much, do you?"  
  
"I don't have to," Kurapika said stiffly, and got up off the bench as if it was burning him. "The free day is for recreation, and this place has all the facilities I need for that." He was being teased--or mocked, and he didn't like it. He remembered to keep his motions careful as he hung his suit on its place beside his locker--the technicians would come by and collect it later for maintenance and repair--but his hands were rough as he opened his locker and retrieved his dogtags.  
  
"So what do you do on your free days, if you don't go out to the city?"   
  
Kurapika briefly contemplated answering that it was none of Kuroro's business, but the man's voice seemed honestly curious, and he was _supposed_ to be making an effort to bond with his co-pilot...  
  
"... I read books," he muttered without looking at Kuroro. He couldn't quite keep the smallest note of defiance out of his voice in expectation of being teased again--and so couldn't believe his ears when Kuroro made a sound halfway between relieved and eager instead.  
  
"Oh good. Can you lend me some? I couldn't bring any of mine, with the transfer and all... What?" he asked bemusedly; Kurapika was staring at him as if only seeing him properly now. "That's part of what I meant when I said that I want time to do other things."   
  
"Nothing," the blond murmured. Kuroro was beaming at him unabashedly, and he nearly pointed out how ridiculous an image he presented, sitting there grinning up at him in nothing but black boxer shorts, until he remembered that he was in a similar state of undress. "I'll lend you one later," he added as he turned back to grab his clothes from his locker.  
  
Another pleased smile, another point his new partner had managed to win from him. A dialogue, not a fight, Kurapika reminded himself, although it had only been three days since they were thrown together, and he was still having trouble curbing his temper, so easily-riled ever since Pairo had to step out of the position Kuroro now occupied. He pulled on his pants and a clean shirt, and then socks and boots, and then closed his locker and turned to wait for Kuroro to finish getting dressed.  
  
He hadn't meant to look too closely, much less stare, but a patch of faded blue caught and held his eye when Kuroro turned to rummage around his locker. There was a starburst... of something, the size of a splayed-out hand, on the man's right hip, half-hidden by the low-riding pants. The skin looked rough, obviously scarred now that he was playing closer attention, and it was a dull, dusty blue. Like a tracery of veins, except for the color to be that even meant that the veins would have to be packed too densely to be natural or healthy.  
  
"Ah, this."  
  
Kurapika started, flushed at getting caught staring, and looked up to meet Kuroro's gaze as the man laid fingers on the scar. "Kaiju blue," Kuroro said mildly, as if the words were enough to explain its origins.  
  
They were, barely; Kurapika had Kuroro's memories from three Drifts now, so he remembered the attack that had ravaged the man's city, had felt the phantom pain of getting pinned by debris and the agony of trying to get to safety with a shattered hip. All that, along with memories of Kuroro's old partner, and how he'd gotten into the Jaeger program, but for this one vital detail that he'd somehow missed in the avalanche of memories that so characterized each Drift.  
  
"How did you survive getting contaminated with Kaiju blue?" he asked, eyes wide with disbelief.  
  
Kuroro cocked his head before shaking it, as if he'd considered giving one answer but then decided on another--"I don't know," he admitted, and quickly pulled on his shirt before continuing. "I didn't touch the stuff, actually, but there was so much of it around me that the doctors were certain that I'd inhaled the vapor."  
  
That wasn't any better. The vapor was just as deadly as the substance itself, more insidious since it got into a person's lungs and killed from inside out. His horror must have shown clear on his face, because Kuroro smiled reassuringly, much like three days ago when Kurapika expressed his disapproval at his new partner getting bounced from truck to helicopter and straight into a candidate screening match.  
  
"I think I was just too stubborn to die. Don't worry about it. That was years ago, and it's just a scar now," Kuroro added brightly as he pushed his locker door shut with one hand and gestured at the door with the other. "Come on, let's go get dinner. I'm hungry."  
  
"You're always hungry," Kurapika huffed, the usual irritability creeping back into his voice when Kuroro started herding him out of the locker room. The man took his irascibility in stride, as usual.  
  
"Fourteen hours of training a day, six days a week; I don't know how you can stand it without having several meals to compensate."  
  
"I don't have a black hole for a stomach," Kurapika retorted, and just like that, the odd mood from before was gone, although even as his partner responded with something idiotic again, the blond quietly made a mental note to ask for Kuroro's detailed personnel file. The Drift showed him everything, but that didn't mean that he could see and notice it all, and having it laid down on paper might help him deal with his partner better.  
  
\-----  
  
"You're a disgrace," Kurapika said from his perch somewhere on the Emperor Time's elbow, watching Kuroro paddle around like a dog on the water underneath him.   
  
"It just takes a while to get used to it," was the gasping answer. "It's so different in a pool. All this salt and the waves and this stupid suit..." He raised his hand feebly up at Kurapika, more dramatic than was actually required, and Kurapika reached down to haul him up to the Emperor's slick side.   
  
"Didn't you have ocean emergency training in your dome?" Kurapika, on the other hand, didn't seem bothered by the water around them. It was a peaceful enough day, in all conscience. The waves weren't too high or violent, the cloudless sky was blue, and the endless sea spread around them, vast and broken only by the city's skyline in the distant horizon. Even the continuous whirring of the helicopter blades above them was comforting.   
  
"Emergency training didn't involve dropping my Jaeger into the ocean so I could rappel down it and flail around an imaginary Kaiju," Kuroro retorted, shivering violently despite the insulation of his suit, clambering up next to his partner and clutching convulsively at the edge of a metal plate. Kurapika supposed it was pretty chilly, but he hadn't been to the water yet and the Emperor buffered most of the wind. "You have no idea how cold the water around the dome was. Anyway, if my Jaeger ever got damaged enough to require an evacuation, what makes you think I'd actually make it out, what with all the metal parts flying and a murderous Kaiju on a rampage and dying of hypothermia?"   
  
Kurapika raised his eyebrows at this tirade, looking at Kuroro's pale, wet face with something like curiosity. His dark hair looked even darker with the water dripping from it. "Calm down a second,” he said, peering at Kuroro searchingly. “What's wrong with you?"  
  
"Nothing," Kuroro said, bravely affecting a smile despite his chattering teeth.   
  
"You're afraid of the water?" Kurapika guessed mercilessly. Kuroro winced.   
  
"Not exactly," came the quick reply. "Not... No, not that exactly. It's more of drowning. It's happened before, right?"  
  
Objectively, he could remember the short experience from their Drift, of a younger Kuroro nearly getting trapped underwater during the ruckus of the attack, and the mad struggle to get to the surface despite the roiling confusion in the wake of a ship’s bulk. It was a vague memory and usually Kurapika focused on the bigger things that happened during the remembered Kaiju attack, but the sensation was vivid enough. Kurapika's own memories of the water around his birthplace were generally pleasant, and apart from the Kaiju rising from the deep, he had little reason to fear it. True, it was brisker weather here, but Kurapika had gotten used to it through time.   
  
"Right," he answered instead, still looking at Kuroro with a sort of wonder. Hitherto, Kuroro had been nothing but confident and pleasant in everything that he did, and it was a strange sight to see him so wretched.   
   
“So, there,” Kuroro added, never one to let silence unfilled if he could help it.   
   
Kurapika considered the helicopter circling above them, the transport choppers farther off, and then down at the water. He looked thoughtfully back at Kuroro, who blinked owlishly at him.   
   
“They won’t let us off until we finish the exercise.” Which involved climbing down to the water, diving in, swimming a few circuits around the Jaeger, climbing back up, diving in again from a higher point, and climbing back up for a final time.   
   
“Yeah,” Kuroro sighed miserably, but stretched his arms above his head to begin the laborious trek back up to the head of the Emperor.   
   
“They don’t say anything about helping each other, though. And anyway, it’s reasonable for partners to provide assistance to each other. Wait here while I finish my circuit.”  When Kuroro gave him a confused look, Kurapika raised his eyebrows at him, shrugged, and jumped into the water with an expert curve of his spine. It would be faster, he told himself as he kicked off powerfully from the Jaeger, than if they took turns with the parts of the exercise, and the water _was_ brisk. 


	4. Warning x Battle x Hangover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pairo plays matchmaker.

"You have to stop that," Kuroro remarked to Kurapika one afternoon, in the middle of their weekly medical check.

"Stop what?" the blond asked, not looking up from the form he was filling up. He rarely glowered at Kuroro these days, but that also meant he usually didn't look at him at all. It was a miracle their drift hadn't suffered adversely so far, but Kuroro reminded himself that they were only a few weeks and two deployments in; there was always room for improvement.

"In our first deployment, you were constantly showing our right side to Boomer. I thought it was a fluke, but then it happened again with Shallowneck." He pointed at Kurapika with the back of his pen. "I studied your fights before when you were Pilot 02, and you and Pairo didn't fight like that. This is a recently acquired habit."

Kurapika's face went the entire cycle of confusion and annoyance before settling on blank disbelief. He put his pen down and gave Kuroro a look, one that said that Kuroro had two minutes before Kurapika walked out of there in exasperation. Kuroro had wanted to put it a little less bluntly, less like he was ungrateful for the effort, but bluntness generally worked better when dealing with Kurapika outside the Jaegers. Who knew communication could be so hard when one wasn't constantly in another person's head, sometimes with a third trace of memories from Pairo to mix in?

"What I'm saying is, you're constantly putting your side of Emperor out where you think the Kaiju is going to attack. You're making efforts to protect my side from damage." Kurapika's mouth opened as if to retort, and Kuroro hurriedly interjected. "I didn't pick up on it on the neural bridge, which means you're doing it unconsciously. I'm telling you so you can be conscious of it and stop doing it."

Kurapika's mouth snapped shut, then remained shut as Kurapika looked at him broodily. "You're an idiot," he finally said severely, after a lengthy pause.

"I know, I know," Kuroro replied easily. "But if you were still working on previous trauma, you'd be protecting your side, which used to be Pairo's side. What you're doing is actively protecting me."

"What it means," Kurapika snapped, voice testy, "Is that I don't want something like that happening again. No matter who's sitting next to me in there."

\-----

It was almost half a year after they were first partnered that the category fours started coming out in earnest. Two Jaegers had been wrecked since the Skill Hunter, and the world was adamant that no more should fall. It was a tall order considering the deadly nature of the Kaiju war, but Kuroro couldn't blame them; the only other option they had was a flimsy wall that most realized wouldn't stand up to the Kaiju, not if they continued increasing in size like this.

"Prepare for drop," the technician at LOCCENT piped in his ear in a tinny voice. Kuroro glanced at Kurapika to his right, letting him time the drop himself.

"Emperor Time disengaging transport," Kurapika replied, and they both reached up for the switches that would relieve the helicopters of their load and plummet the Emperor Time into the sea.

The briefing continued, assisted by visuals from the Emperor and the smaller helicopters hovering over them. It was still daylight for some hours yet, thankfully. Kuroro was as much a fighter as the rest of the crew, but sea battles with Kaiju was complicated enough without it being night time. "Depth is a hundred and fifty meters. Kaiju Rhino two miles to the south-southwest, four o'clock from your position. Jaegers Assassin and Jester Mad four miles off and approaching."

"Roger that," Kuroro answered, bracing himself for the landing. It came as abruptly as it usually did, but he and Kurapika were excellent at regaining balance and they were marching in the direction of the Kaiju in a matter of seconds, pushing through water and leaving the remaining faint skyline of the city and the Shatterdome behind. They moved their legs together with the now-long ease of practice, stomping with the weight of the platforms under their feet.

"Be careful out there," came Pairo's voice over the communications device, quiet as it always was, but tinged with understandable concern. Kuroro smiled and chuckled.

"We'll be fine, Pairo," he said. "But I'm getting kind of hungry."

"You're always hungry," Kurapika grumbled, but agreeably subjected himself to Pairo's silent fussing. It wasn't like Pairo didn't trust them to do their jobs correctly or watch out for each other, Kuroro figured, but all three of them had faced disaster in the cockpit in various ways and he wouldn't be surprised if they all had a bit of trauma that manifested itself in different degrees of anxiety.

"Rhino within combat range," the technician interrupted again, the perimeter screen lighting up in front of them with the red dot just a little way off. They turned their heads automatically to put it square within their all visuals, at all spectrum. Kuroro thought that Rhino was an appropriate name for the Kaiju when they caught sight of it, barely skimming the surface of the water. It would have been invisible if not for their technology and the single sharp horn protruding proudly over its snout, fast cleaving through the water in a circular direction. A large one -- all the Kaiju coming out now were always the largest and heaviest that they had ever seen, so Kuroro had stopped putting meaning into the warning. Every Kaiju battle was harder than the last, that was all he needed to remember, but hopefully an operation like this with three Jaegers would be enough to subdue this new baddy.

He glanced at Kurapika again, but the blond was all steel and determination behind the glass casing of his helmet. As long as Kurapika remembered what Kuroro said when he had confronted him a couple of months ago, he thought to himself.

Kurapika's eyes narrowed, although Kuroro wasn't sure if it was a reaction to his vague thoughts or the Kaiju's change in direction to make a beeline for them. "Preparing to engage the Kaiju."

"Roger," their technician said. "Jester will join you in three minutes. Assassin to stand by as backup. Neural handshake holding well, sir." The last part was not meant for them, he guessed.

"Take care until the Jester can join you," said the voice of the Marshal, and Kuroro raised his eyebrows. They must have been on video feed because the Marshal's stern reply came filtering through a second later. "We want to make sure all three of you come out of this whole, Lucifer."

"Yes, sir," Kurapika answered for him, and Kuroro internally sighed. There was a hint of reproach, but that was as far as he and Kurapika could go before Rhino leapt out of the sea, surprisingly agile despite what Kuroro could see was its massive, thickset body size. It had jackhammers for fists, armored with what Kuroro thought were massive nails, each one like hooves.

They stepped back and back again, but the Kaiju followed them with ferocious determination, raised its fists, and brought it down just over the Emperor's head.

The impact of those same fists against the Emperor's shoulders rocked the Conn-Pod violently and winded the both of them, pain traveling down from their shoulders courtesy of the suit, but they braced their feet against the seabed, bent their knees, and pushed with crashing force and matching cries with their own fists to the creature's chest. Rhino reared back and roared at them, blue froth around its muzzle.

Nothing significant damaged, he thought as he glanced over the console in front of him. Another thought passed through his head that he should move his left foot back, and he did just that as Kurapika bent the Emperor forward, missing another swipe from those massive fists. He slammed his hand on the console to bring both of the Emperor's sting blades to bear, and he and Kurapika crossed their arms to slice at the Rhino's head. It dodged, only getting nicked, the wound cauterizing immediately from the blades' thermal energy.

"Jester approaching in one minute and thirty seconds," the technician told them anxiously. From his periphery, Kuroro could see that the Jester had broken into a flat out run, slower than what Emperor or even the Skill Hunter could have managed, but still fast enough to matter in the battle.

The Rhino changed tactics at seeing the approach, charging for them full out with all of its weight and speed. Even if they were fast, there was no way to dodge such a rush, and Kuroro and Kurapika braced for the crash and held the sting blades to receive the Kaiju. It was loud, and the metal of the Emperor screamed and cracked like thunder as the Rhino bore down on them. Gritting their teeth, Kuroro and Kurapika slid the sting blades up the Kaiju's ribs in an effort to hold it off; Rhino thrashed at them, slicing itself deep but also gaining enough of a handhold to slam the Emperor with its horn.

"Kurapika," Kuroro yelled as the horn pierced through the Emperor's right shoulder, the electric shock lancing up their arms alongside the warning from the console. Stupid Kurapika had put his side of the Jaeger forward again, had made it the more obvious target for the Rhino's horn.

"LOCCENT, Emperor's right arm malfunctioning," he shouted over the din of damaged metal and the shower of sparks from where a second thrust from the Rhino's horn had pierced a corner of the Conn-Pod. It was far enough from Kurapika, but the sight of the hole made Kuroro's blood run cold. Kurapika himself had snapped to the side at the impact, both pilots so violently thrown around he wondered how their braces managed to hold them.

The angel wing was nowhere to be found on the right shoulder and the Emperor's arm was deadweight. He raised and pulled at the Emperor's left arm and stabbed the blade as hard as it could go into the Rhino's gut, forcing it to disengage with an enraged shriek. No point in asking for backup now with the Jester already approaching.

There was an unusual pain that he could feel on both their left shoulders over the agony of their Jaeger’s shattered arm reverberating through their heads, something that he was dimly beginning to recognize as phantom agony on his end, a sensation from Kurapika through the Drift.

"Kurapika!" Kuroro finally recognized what was wrong. A dislocated shoulder and possibly a broken or fractured arm. His partner had shut his eyes against the pain, but continued to cling to their connection to the Emperor like a clamp.

"It's fine," Kurapika hissed, glaring out his faceplate, eyes blazing. "I can still move."

"Are you crazy?" he demanded, teeth gritted. No, that was wrong. Between the two of them, Kuroro was supposed to be the crazy one. "If you haven't crippled yourself yet, pursuing battle will." All injuries were exacerbated by the pressure and demands of piloting a Jaeger, even if there were two brains handling the burden. That was how Pairo had lost most of his vision.

"Jester approaching from the right," their technician said. "Rhino backing off from the Emperor to engage the Jester. Emperor, pull back and retreat to the Shatterdome immediately."

"The Jester can't handle that monster alone," Kurapika interjected, pressing buttons on their console to see what he could salvage of the Emperor's arm. "And the Assassin is too small to assist. It has to be us. LOCCENT, Emperor's missile launchers are disabled," he added. "The Rhino damaged the opening mechanisms of the hatches."

"Kurapika, listen to Kuroro," Pairo said over the comm, quickly interrupted by the more sharp orders of the Marshal echoing their technician.

Before Kurapika could force them to take the Emperor another step, Kuroro yanked his helmet off his head, reached over, and manually cut the neural handshake.

"What are you doing?" Kurapika demanded, staring at him angrily.

"I'm not taking you to battle," Kuroro retorted, his arm reduced to a steadily throbbing ache from the neural shocks. "Marshal, send a personnel carrier to retrieve my partner." He paused for all of three seconds, just enough for Kurapika to give him a dirty look, before adding, "Send Pairo over. Kurapika's right, Jester and Assassin won't be enough for the Rhino. They're not advanced enough," he said over the ensuing protests.

"Don't you dare," his partner hissed, grabbing Kuroro's arm angrily. "Don't you dare bring Pairo into this."

"Marshal," he said, shrugging him off and giving Kurapika a glare. "I can solo the Emperor's sights as long as I have a partner to handle the maneuvering of the rest of the Jaeger's body. An uninjured partner," he added pointedly. "And Pairo and Kurapika had a hundred percent Drift compatibility. I can't think of anyone else who'd Drift with me just as well as Kurapika does in the Shatterdome right now. None of the other trainees are ready."

"I'll kill you," Kurapika threatened, clutching at his shoulder. But, Kuroro reflected privately, Kurapika was a good pilot and knew better than to remove himself from the motion rigging that kept them from flying around the spacious Conn. "Kuroro, don't."

"Kuroro has a point," Pairo said tentatively, voice clearly heard through the silence on the communicator's end. The noise in the Conn was thunderous due to the sound of the sea outside filtering through the hole the Rhino had made, and outside Kuroro could see Jester engaged in a sort of chase with the Rhino. The Assassin had joined the fray as well, but Kuroro knew that their speed could only be sustained for so long, and that the Kaiju were at an advantage at sea.

Kurapika made a cry of disbelief. "You can't be serious, Pairo," he said, voice cracking to take on a more pleading tone, in as much as proud Kurapika could plead. "Marshal!"

The feed cut off momentarily as the people in LOCCENT discussed it, and Kuroro watched the Kaiju fight a mile off with a wary eye. The Jester and the Assassin had done a good job of luring Rhino off and minimize damage to themselves, but if it decided to come at the Emperor again, it could do so in good time.

Kurapika stood beside him in brittle silence, body rigid and stiff.

“We’re sending a personnal carrier over, due in three minutes,” the Marshal eventually said, voice grave. “Prepare for the exchange. We’ve sent Pairo to suit up. No more protests, Kurapika,” he added sternly. “This is an order, not a war council.”

Kurapika exhaled raggedly and muttered a “Yes, sir,” before slowly, almost-numbly removing himself from the harness. Kuroro handled the necessary instructions before stepping down himself, to help Kurapika climb up the hatch.

“I’ll take the Pilot 01 side,” he told Kurapika as they stood there on the Emperor’s head, holding on to the hatch for balance. Kurapika’s arm was pressed stiffly to his side, and the blond glanced up at him at his declaration. “The 02 side is safer right now, so don’t worry about Pairo.”

“You’re a moron if you think it’s only Pairo I’m worried about,” Kurapika told him unhappily, but refused to say anything more when Kuroro made a questioning sound. The helicopter was fast approaching from the north, and in no time at all, Pairo was climbing down to join them on the Jaeger. He looked odd in a pilot’s suit, although Kuroro figured that Pairo must have been in the Jaeger numerous times before.

There was something sharp and dangerous about the way he moved while dressed up, uncharacteristic of the harmless almost blind man that haunted the hallways of the Shatterdome. Kuroro had sparred with him before, of course, knew that there was hidden steel under the soft face and lanky body and far more skill and strength than people thought as was required for a ranger, but he’d never really considered Pairo as a pilot. And now here he was.

Two of their tech crew jumped down the Emperor’s head along with Pairo. They seized Kurapika to the helicopter while the men in the helicopter pulled him up, and both technicians promptly began ushering Kuroro and Pairo down the hatch. Kuroro hadn’t thought about needing assistance in setting up, but he was grateful for the Marshal’s foresight. They were lashed onto their motion rigs in silence, his helmet rewired for the change in position, and the spinal tap was replaced as well. It was quick, efficient work completely done in silence, and if weren’t for the sounds of the fight outside Kuroro would have let himself be lulled into the comfort of training and routine.

“He won’t be happy with you after this,” Pairo eventually said as the crew gathered their tools and squirreled up the hatch. He was looking around the Conn from his perch. Familiarizing himself, Kuroro recognized. Even for Pairo, piloting on that side of the Jaeger would be a new experience, let alone piloting it blind.

“I’ll deal with it after the battle,” Kuroro shrugged and began flipping the switches that would allow LOCCENT to start the Drift after his manual shut down. There was a large dent on one of the steel rigs holding him up, probably the same thing that had injured Kurapika when he got flung around. The hole on the Conn-Pod next to him was blindingly white from the sea and the sun, and above them, he heard the helicopter begin its retreat back to the Shatterdome.

“Engaging neural handshake,” the technician from LOCCENT intoned. Kuroro looked at Pairo, whose eyes were fixed on the console in front of them, lips thin.

The sensation of falling into the Drift was jerkier than usual, signs of their stress and worry, but Kuroro was surprised at how familiar it was to Drift with Pairo. There was something intimate about the Drift that most pilots couldn’t name, a difference in response from partner to partner, but for the most part Kuroro felt that barring some oddities, he was as comfortable with Pairo as he had been with Kurapika. There were similar memories, some of them even identical. The tone was gentler, less vibrant, and oddly enough harder in places as well. Pairo had a less easy childhood than his cousin, and Kuroro had to force himself to not chase the flavors of these memories in his curiosity. Next to him, Pairo made a short sound of reproach before they were abruptly in each other’s heads. Thankfully, the pain from the Emperor’s arm was dulled into a reasonable sting, probably courtesy of the crew, and Pairo only winced.

“That’s… interesting,” Pairo murmured, peering round at Kuroro. “Kurapika mentioned some things, but…”

“Nothing to worry your head over.” Kuroro chuckled, already urging the Emperor around to face the ongoing battle. “Jester Mad and Assassin, this is ranger Lucifer taking over the Emperor’s Conn. We’re back in business, gentlemen, and I have a plan.”

The other rangers acknowledged, as did LOCCENT, and Kuroro began the laborious task of handling all of the Emperor’s visuals, from sonar to infrared. Pairo couldn’t help him there, but he did take over the active movement of the Jaeger; Kuroro barely had to think about walking as he looked for an opening in the fight. Still, the Drift wasn’t meant to be portioned like this for a prolonged period of time, and Kuroro guessed that in half an hour, they would be sharing a headache so bad it would force them off the fight anyway. Kuroro had never piloted a Jaeger solo before, not entirely, but he and Pakunoda were accustomed to changing places and responsibilities in the middle of battle and he knew the creeping ache in his head from the effort of keeping the connection strong with a machine as big as this.

"Emperor Time in position," he said, the Jaeger still stomping closer and closer to the tussling behemoths, coming in from their flank. Jester Mad had successfully buried something that looked like a spear on the Rhino's thigh, limiting its movement. The Assassin was already backing off. Kuroro took control of the Emperor's left hand -- his side was now the crippled one -- and carefully tore off the hatch over the rockets poised on their chest.

Kuroro paused, waiting for disapproval from Pairo, but there was surprisingly none forthcoming. It made him smile, because really, one would think that Pairo would be the nag between him and his cousin. Pairo cocked his eyebrow at Kuroro before shrugging, and Kuroro pulled back the Emperor's arm and flung the piece of metal he'd just removed right at the back of the Rhino's head.

"Hey," he called out even though he wasn't sure the Kaiju could hear him at all. Rhino turned around anyway, eyeing them malevolently through blue, round eyes the size of a car. "Hey, you, I have a beef with you. It's called injuring our partner."

Ridiculous, he thought, and then realized it was Pairo's thought. Ridiculous but true, came the amendment.

The Kaiju turned around heavily, the sea around it a luminescent blue, and charged with an angry roar. He tracked its progress grimly while Pairo whipped out their remaining sting blade and flipped open that one switch Kuroro privately called Overkill.

"Brace," Pairo murmured, slamming his fist on the large red button and sending every missile and rocket in the Emperor's chest cavity hurtling through the air at the Kaiju. Rhino was only a couple of hundred meters by then, too close to dodge most of their armament but still far enough that it slamming into the Emperor Time probably wouldn't lead to catastrophe. Probably, and that was their problem now as almost three thousand tons of leathery skin and heavy muscle plowed into them, just as the last of their missile left its pod. Kuroro had whipped out the Emperor's blade at the moment of impact, burying it deep into the Rhino's neck and spattering their Jaeger with blue blood that immediately made their hull smoke. Most of the Kaiju had erupted into bleeding craters where the missiles had done their work, but the sheer weight of it strained Pairo, who had taken control of both legs, as they tried not to fall over into the sea. Beyond giving the Kaiju ground, there was the matter of that sizable hole that would submerge them in seawater in a matter of seconds.

"Hold on," he muttered, gritting his teeth as he forced the blade deeper into its neck. The Kaiju's horn had found its way into their chest cavity, but it was mostly empty space now and could do no great harm. Its massive fists were still thumping at their side, but already he could sense it weakening.

Help came in the form of the Jester Mad, who reached for the Kaiju’s head and dragged it back from them. From there, it was quick work to dispatch the Rhino, so easy that it was almost anti-climatic. Jester Mad began the laborious process of cauterize over the wounds they had inflicted on the Kaiju, to stop it from spilling more of its toxic blood into the ocean, while the Assassin opened a valve on its rib and sprayed the Emperor’s chest liberally with what Kuroro recognized as coolant. To stop the progress of the blood on their Jaeger, he recognized dimly, heart still rapidly pumping in his chest.

“LOCCENT to Emperor Time,” came their technician’s voice, and the plasma display moved over into a feed of the Marshal’s face. “We’re taking command and control of the Jaeger and easing you off the Drift. Your vitals went high a moment ago. Transport en route.”

“Normalizing,” Pairo said, looking at him. The man looked a bit pale, but from what Kuroro could pick up from the Drift, Pairo was all right. Kuroro, on the other hand, felt a little like someone had taken a mallet to him. Kuroro’s body sagged, relieving all control to LOCCENT.

“Let’s go home, then,” he said with a sigh, leaning back against his motion rig and closing his eyes. The pain was already fading away now that they had shut off the Drift, and he was glad to give his eyes the rest.

 

Kurapika met them at the dock, fury and anxiety warring on his face. He looked relieved to see them safe, but at the same time, Kuroro knew that the punch across the jaw that he received wasn't quite undeserved, and that Kurapika hadn't pulled that punch at all. Kuroro fancied even the seagulls stopped squawking for a moment in response to the scene. The technicians and the Marshal promptly stepped away to leave the three of them to their privacy. About the only thing missing to make the scene perfect, Kuroro thought dimly through the sharp pain, was a raging storm in the background.

"Lucifer," Kurapika started, face pinched and pale from pain and anger, his entire body shaking. His left arm was in a light sling. "If you ever drag my cousin into a battle with the Kaiju again, I'll murder you myself."

"Hush, Kurapika," Pairo said softly, putting himself between them and wrapping an arm across Kurapika's good shoulder. "It went well."

"Next time," Kuroro spoke up, idly thumbing where his lip had split from the blow. "Maybe you shouldn't put your side in danger either. I'm not a child, Kurapika. If you try to protect me, I'll spend half the battle trying to cancel out your instructions to the Emperor and it damages our compatibility when I second guess you. Don't put me through that worry."

There it was, the shut off broody look that Kurapika had been prone to wearing when they first met, when the blond was still being neurotic about getting a new partner. Kuroro sighed and put his hand on Kurapika's head, the only other part of him not draped on by Pairo. "You have to trust me as I do you," he said, voice turning heavy with weariness. It had been a tiring battle, and his body ached all over. And he was hungry as hell. "I wouldn't have put Pairo in danger if I could help it. You know?"

"You could have both died, idiot," Kurapika muttered, just a tone shy of sulking. But he didn't shrug Kuroro's hand off, and didn't resist when Pairo's hold on him tightened. Kuroro didn't believe for a second that he had won that argument, or that Kurapika was conceding to his point, but if Kurapika was calm enough to offer him peace instead of another punch in the mouth, he'd take it. Besides, it was a big deal, what he had done, putting the two people Kurapika was intimate with in abject danger while kicking Kurapika out of his own Jaeger. Kuroro had been right, but he had also been wrong: he'd put Kurapika in a position of worry exactly like how Kurapika had worried him, and there was a possibility that he had damaged their compatibility with this.

"I'm sorry," he said after a moment, smiling wanly, just before Pairo asked, "How's your shoulder?"

"It was dislocated," Kurapika said, resigned. He leaned away from Pairo's affection to verify for himself if Pairo had indeed escaped that battle unscathed, but of course Kuroro knew that he'd managed to bring Pairo back almost spotless. "My humerus is fractured and there was some slight tearing of my shoulder muscle. Leorio said I would have broken my arm if my shoulder hadn't gotten dislocated at the same time. Recovery period is two months, with light exercise."

"That's good," Kuroro exhaled in relief, dramatically staggering where he stood. "I was worried for a second there."

"More like an hour," Pairo confided to Kurapika, voice just a bit too loud for a whisper, his customary smile on his face.

Kurapika looked between the two of them with his eyebrows furrowed together. "You're both idiots."

"Ah," Kuroro said cheerfully, herding both younger men inside the Shatterdome. "But we're both living idiots."

\-----

Kuroro got quite sick after that, something that someone eventually realized was the effect of drift hangover with two different people in very taxing situations. Kurapika and Pairo had needed to be sent away for a few days until their neural connection faded away, just enough to ease the pressure on Kuroro's ragged consciousness.

He recovered quickly enough after, especially when the Marshal ordered them to cease all Drifting and let the connection fade entirely. In another week, he was back to his normal self, tagging along behind Kurapika between training and happily tracking Kurapika's own slower recovery. He hung out often enough with Pairo as well, reading to him (and sometimes Kurapika) when he loitered around their room.

To Kurapika, things were as well as they could be, and when Kuroro recovered, he found no real reason to complain despite his tedious regimen. That was, until Pairo decided to meddle, anyway.

"He likes you, you know," Pairo said suddenly as they were moving things around in their room. The Shatterdome was having a bit of an infestation problem with mice, and Kurapika was putting mousetraps in strategic positions around their dorm just to be safe.

Kurapika didn't hear it clearly, or at least thought he didn't, and so prodded Pairo to repeat himself.

"He likes you. He's attracted to you, but he's not exactly too aware of it yet."

“By he, I assume that you mean Kuroro,” Kurapika replied dryly. Pairo smiled up at him in his usual, sweet-natured way, but Kurapika knew that at least some of that was being faked right now. His cheeks felt a little warm, but he didn’t think he was blushing enough for Pairo to see.

“When we were Drifting,” Pairo said by way of explanation. “It was pretty vague, but he was so worried about you that his subconscious sort of kept on bringing it up.”

Kurapika paused from setting the mousetrap on a corner and gave his cousin a closer, more thoughtful look. “I never felt it in the Drift. He can’t be that oblivious to his own brain.”

“Kuroro’s… strange.” Pairo looked up at the ceiling, tapping a knuckle to his chin. “When he’s interested in something, he pursues it, and he likes to learn things. But there’s a lot of information that just sort of escapes him, especially when they're boring, or if they don’t fit in particular with his… background.”

“When he was a gangster,” Kurapika clarified, and then corrected himself. “More of a streetrat than an actual criminal element. But I think a lot of that is suppression.” He paused, and shrugged. “He’s very good at compartmentalizing his brain. I think that’s why he’s so good at Drifting.”

Pairo eyed him curiously. “You don’t sound like you mind.”

Kurapika shrugged again, cheeks growing warmer, and went back to the mousetrap. “I do, a little. But if he’s not doing anything about it, then it doesn’t matter. Besides,” he added with a frown. “You might be wrong. If I think about it too much, he’ll pick that up when we’re finally allowed to Drift again, and it might cause problems.”

“But if he makes a move on you…”

The door was right there, he thought to himself. He could run out and leave the conversation any minute he wanted. Kurapika ducked his head, fussing unnecessarily on the mousetrap. “I haven’t thought about it,” he mumbled.


	5. Waves x Touch x Connection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for this glorious chapter (actually the main reason this thing is rated Mature in the first place) goes entirely to Yukitsu. (She also wrote chapter 2, half of chapter 3, and chapter 4.)

Kurapika sometimes wondered what sort of man Kuroro really was, and why he could be so eccentric. They were partners, of course, and had been in each other's heads in the most intimate way possible, but there were days when Kurapika just couldn't understand him. Like now, in the middle of the large and deep pool that the Shatterdome sometimes used for recreation and sometimes for simulating sea conditions, with Kuroro paddling around like a dog. Kurapika knew Kuroro was capable of swimming well, but the man had a tendency of forgetting to move his limbs about when distracted and just sinking like a rock if he didn't concentrate on the very act of keeping afloat. 

"You're veering off," he admonished, treading water on his own side of the pool, observing his partner's erratic movements with a frown. The exercise was supposed to be for his benefit, to regain his lost stamina from the recovery period required for his fractured arm, and Kuroro was supposed to join him to make sure he didn't hurt himself, but Kurapika was beginning to doubt the effectiveness of the decision. The pool had been set to be on the somewhat choppy side today and apparently that was hard enough for the older man. It was a good thing they had the whole run of the pool right now, because Kurapika would be hard-pressed not to feel embarrassed with his partner flailing about in such an undignified way. 

Kuroro gave him a sheepish grin and paddled over, his nose barely staying above the surface of the water and bobbing here and there with the waves. Kurapika pushed off from the side of the pool to meet his partner in the middle, because if he waited there he might as well wait forever. 

"Come here," he said, efficiently reaching Kuroro and emerging just in front of his partner. Kuroro laughed, wrapping his arms around Kurapika's neck and hanging on, his bare skin cold against Kurapika's. Vaguely, he wondered at the wisdom of swimming only in shorts as well, when Pairo had pointed out Kuroro's attraction for him and Kurapika had confirmed it in their recent Drift. At some point in all their exercises, Kurapika always ended up helping Kuroro around. 

"I don't think swimming really is for me," Kuroro murmured against his ear, placid and limp as Kurapika treaded water for the both of them. His legs brushed Kuroro's when Kuroro remembered to kick water, and their chests were flush against each other. Kurapika liked to think the small shiver that crawled down his gut was due to the cold water, but that was probably not entirely true. 

"It's easy if you don't focus on it too much." 

"If I don't, I just stop moving," Kuroro chuckled. "Am I too heavy? How's your arm?"

"My arm's fine," he muttered, because it was true. And then he wondered, just vaguely, if Kuroro was ever going to do anything about his crush on Kurapika and decided that it didn't matter, because he didn't actually have to wait. They hadn't Drifted long enough the last time to establish any significant Drift hangover so communication was a little more difficult than usual, but he eventually managed to convey that Kuroro should stop plastering his chin to Kurapika's shoulder and let Kurapika put their lips together. Nothing raunchy, but obviously deliberate. 

Kuroro, naturally, almost lost his hold, and only just managed to stop himself from slipping off entirely when a wave washed over their heads. He renewed his grip on Kurapika's shoulders and stared at him, somewhat red-rimmed eyes large on his boyish face, hair plastered black over his forehead. Kurapika almost laughed, but instead only raised his eyebrows. 

"You look so surprised," Kurapika said, privately congratulating himself on his move because Kuroro really only looked this shattered when in water. If he was going to make any declarations of his own attraction, it was better to have the advantage. 

"I just... didn't expect it," Kuroro replied slowly, expression turning from wonder to clear interest. "Are you sure? You didn't seem interested, before."

"You never asked," he retorted, and realized that there were times when swimming could be hard, like when someone muscled and heavy like Kuroro pressed in to pursue his mouth. 

It was a nice kiss, all things considered, carefully exploratory with their tongues firmly pushing against each other and swiping at each other's lips. It was, Kurapika realized, like walking up to someone and shaking each other's hands, except handshakes didn't leave him feeling warm and shivering at the same time. 

They didn't actually need to be in a neural handshake to come upon the mutual decision of swimming back to the edge of the pool, kicking with each other and barely parting the entire time until they bumped against the rail leading up the edge. Kuroro planted a foot on the cold metal underneath them, grabbed the bar over Kurapika's head with a hand, and wrapped his other arm around Kurapika's waist. 

"We should get out of the pool first," he murmured against Kuroro's lips, arm around Kuroro's neck and rather snugly pressed up against his partner. They were, he found out, both hard under their shorts.

“We should,” Kuroro managed to start before trailing off into a groan when Kurapika pressed his thigh between Kuroro’s legs, muffling himself against Kurapika’s neck. The sound was oddly appealing; Kurapika had always been aware that Kuroro had a pleasant voice, but like this it was so easy to think of it in another setting entirely, and he was finding that he actually liked the idea of it. 

Kuroro’s hand slid down from Kurapika’s waist to under his ass, and Kurapika felt himself getting bodily hauled out of the pool and onto the ledge, staring down at his partner. For some reason, he blushed when Kuroro pecked him on the lips on his way up, and ducked his head as he got to his feet. 

“My room, or…?” was Kuroro’s uncertain question. 

“Yours makes more sense. Pairo might be in ours,” he answered, rinsing himself under the poolside water and picking up a towel from their bench and wrapping it around his shoulders. It almost seemed regrettable that they had to put clothes on to make the walk through half the Shatterdome to their quarters. Kuroro had also rinsed off and was putting his pants on beside him, not even bothering to chuck his sodden shorts off. Normally, the man would rather walk the distance in his swimwear than use the pool shower, but Kurapika supposed it would be impossible for people to miss their erections. He followed suit and pulled his pants and shirt on, relocating the towel to his head and finding the combination of dry and wet clothes profoundly uncomfortable. In retrospect, maybe starting something in the pool wasn’t a good idea, if only because they had to move elsewhere afterwards. 

Beside him, Kuroro looked just as discomfited by their outfit, rubbing his towel briskly over his hair to dry it. “If I didn’t know that people are due to use the pool fifteen minutes from now…”

“It’s not hygienic, anyway,” Kurapika said with a small snort of amusement, leading the way out the area. 

“You are the only one I know who thinks hygiene is an acceptable foreplay talk.” Kurapika gave him a dirty look. “Just kidding, no, please don’t change your mind.” 

He sniffed, but the effect was somewhat dampened by the fluffy green towel on his head, and the fact that they were walking through the Shatterdome corridors half-sodden. The noise and bustle of the Shatterdome at least made their conversation more or less private. “I wasn’t going to. Why didn’t you go for it before now?” 

Kuroro shrugged, navigating their way around a trolley of supplies. “I wasn’t sure how it would be taken. I’d been planning on waiting a little.... In my Shatterdome, we weren’t allowed to bring anyone in and rangers were made to Drift with their partners almost every day to keep the neural connection strong. You do it by training and sparring daily here, but we did things differently. Paku was like a sister to me so I couldn’t think of her that way, but I couldn’t sleep around because of the Drift hangover. That would have been rude. There was a tech crew I fooled around with once in a while, but all in all, that had never been a big part of my life. What?” he asked, noticing the thoughtful way Kurapika was looking at him. 

“Nothing,” Kurapika said, thinking to himself about how surprising Kuroro could sometimes really be. His partner was a study in never judging books by their covers, he supposed, and resisted the urge to ask about this tech crew. 

“But that also means,” Kuroro added with a leer, “That I haven’t done anything resembling getting into someone else’s pants since I got here. I leave myself in your capable hands.”

“Idiot,” he groused, blushing profusely, because they both knew that Kurapika did have brief, fleeting experiences with men – or a man, as it stood – but nothing to warrant the lewd comment. His relationship with Leorio hadn’t lasted beyond a few tumbles in bed, but they had been good experiences, at least. 

The talk dropped into silence after that, their hands brushing each other as they walked past the various sections of the Shatterdome. Anticipation sat firmly in his stomach and not for the first time since the pool, Kurapika wished he could have set a faster pace for Kuroro’s room. Excitement or impatience weren’t the words to describe it, but he had been comfortable in Kuroro’s arm and preferred that over having to think about it too much. 

They eventually made it and Kuroro ushered them both in, bolting the door shut behind them. In no time at all, he found himself being pressed against the door, Kuroro bending down to kiss him, the man’s hands braced against the door on either side of Kurapika’s ribs. Kurapika wrapped his arms around Kuroro’s neck and pulled himself in, kissing back just as eagerly. He could drown in this, he thought, immediately muddled by the warmth, and when Kuroro squeezed his ass, he gasped into his partner’s mouth and ground his groin against Kuroro’s hip. 

Kurapika was dimly aware of his shirt and towel being lifted up over his head, but he was more intent on the warmth of a hand sliding up along his back, and of sliding his own hands up under Kuroro’s shirt and feeling the muscles there. And, all right, Kuroro was attractive – many of their fans said so, Kurapika knew that much – but he hadn’t expected for Kuroro be so gratifying to touch. From the scar to the firm chest, it was all toned muscle definition he wouldn’t mind exploring at length. 

Kuroro huffed a laugh from where he had been kissing down Kurapika’s jaw when he pinched a nipple. “Your drawstrings are making it hard for me to take off your pants,” Kuroro said, then seemed to rectify his own problem by cupping Kurapika’s crotch through his pants, rubbing him briskly with the flat of his palm. Kurapika bit back a groan and quickly yanked at the piece of string that would undo the knot entirely, before returning to the important task of divesting Kuroro of his clothes as well. 

All in all, Kurapika privately counted it as a victory for them both when they finally tumbled into Kuroro’s bed naked, Kurapika sprawled on top of the larger man. Kuroro grabbed his hips and ground him down onto himself, making the both of them suck in a breath. And it was like being on the bed made everything more urgent, because now Kurapika couldn’t help but rub himself against all that warm skin and Kuroro couldn’t seem to figure out where to settle his hands because he wanted to touch everywhere. 

“Come here,” Kuroro said against his mouth, pushing himself up by the elbow until he was seated on the bed with Kurapika straddling his lap. It was almost embarrassing how Kuroro could just manhandle him and pull him closer, but all Kurapika could do was nod and make noises at the back of his throat when Kuroro pressed their cocks against each other and wrapped his hand around them. 

“This fine?” Kuroro asked, kissing his ear and squeezing. 

“Yeah,” he managed, biting his lip and resting his forehead on Kuroro’s shoulder when the latter started to stroke the both of them off. It was so far different from when he got himself off, or even from fooling around with Leorio in the past, because here there was just that connection, of having connected and being in each other’s heads and knowing each other so intimately, and even in these matters Kuroro was an outstanding partner. 

And it was nice. More than nice, to be able to do this with someone he trusted and cared about. He had been prepared to dislike Kuroro the first time they’d met, and now here they were, uncovering the hidden layers to each other in a way only partners who Drifted could, patching up the cracks that their previous partnerships had left them with. Kurapika reached between them as well, tangling his fingers with Kuroro’s as the man moved his hand up and down.

“Ah, Kuroro,” he stuttered, and forgot what he was about to say when Kuroro caught his earlobe gently between his teeth and squeezed at their cocks. Kurapika gave a small cry and came against his stomach, and Kuroro let go of himself to pump Kurapika for the duration of his orgasm. Which was, well, yes, that was more than fine. 

“You all right?” 

Kurapika only nodded, his heart still beating too fast for words and his arms limp around Kuroro’s waist. Kuroro looked down at him fondly, kissing him gently on the cheek before nosing behind his ear. And then his affection turned into a satisfying gasp when Kurapika reached down and took a firm hold of his erection, nudging Kuroro’s hand aside to be able to get his hand around its base. He pulled slowly up and Kuroro panted against his shoulder in small exhalations, and when Kurapika made good use of his thumb against Kuroro’s head, the man groaned, long and low, and clutched at his hips. 

“All right?” Kurapika asked, echoing Kuroro’s early question with a touch of smugness, and Kuroro only whined in response. He pushed Kuroro down to stretch out on the bed, his other hand on Kuroro’s stomach and Kuroro’s cock thick and warm in his hand, and stroked him off just like that, watching the man’s expression as he came. When he did, Kuroro threw an arm over his eyes, his mouth open in a silent exclamation that made Kurapika want to kiss him. Kuroro immediately pulled him down when he had caught his breath to let him do just that. 

“I should have asked sooner,” Kuroro murmured a little later, after their kissing had gotten lazier and lazier, yawning a little and pulling a pillow from the far side of the bed under his head. Kurapika was perfectly fine with Kuroro’s arm for now, even if it was a little hard for a pillow. In fact, with the glow of orgasm still making good judgment hazy, he was perfectly fine with most things. 

He nodded and turned his attention to the bluish scar on Kuroro’s hip that had caught his eye all those months ago, tracing its smooth but uneven border with a finger. And then he thought better of his answer and corrected himself. “I think if you had, Pairo might have beaten you halfway to death. At least now that you two have Drifted, he knows you better.” 

Kuroro gave him a look, then stared up at the ceiling as if to mull it over. “He’s a sharp one, isn’t he? But he was the one who wanted me partnered with you from the start, and went through all that trouble to fix our meeting. You and I are neither related nor did we graduate together, so we had a pretty high chance of being sexually attracted to each other. I’m sure he knew that.”

“That just means he was ready to beat you halfway to death from the start,” Kurapika said with a small, private smile, making Kuroro give him a slightly uneasy look. Kurapika knew, of course, not only from Drifting with Kuroro but because he just knew Pairo too well, but he couldn’t really reproach him for the underhanded way he got Kurapika to participate in the candidate trials. Back then, Kurapika had been ready to brood and train the rest of his time away, and might have been kicked out of the ranger program if he hadn’t gotten a partner again. 

“I had better bring it up with him, hadn’t I,” Kuroro asked warily. Kurapika poked at the sticky mess drying on Kuroro’s stomach as a response and the man got up agreeably to retrieve their damp towels from wherever they’d left them. He stole the pillow and tucked it under his head. 

Now that he could, Kurapika gave the room a cursory look; it was much like his, except Kuroro’s things from his old Shatterdome were still in boxes at the corner, and the desk was cluttered with books of all kind, many of them illegitimately taken from libraries. It was marginally neater than the state of slob that Kurapika had seen of it the week before when Kuroro had snuck in junk food of all types into the dome and eaten them all in his room (he had offered to share), so Kurapika found that he couldn’t complain. 

Kuroro came back with the towel and wiped them both off, before rejoining Kurapika on the bed with another lazy kiss. He settled down, yawned again, and closed his eyes. “Let’s nap until dinner then have another go.” 

That made Kurapika blush for no real reason other than the complete satisfaction in Kuroro’s voice, and he would have knocked Kuroro on the head if the man didn’t look so pleased with himself. “Idiot.”


	6. Jester x Says x Hello

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badtouch x Jester x Trauma would also work as a chapter title.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it isn't obvious yet, we were really just drabbling for this universe at the time the PacRim bug hit us (really _hard_ ; we watched it twice and then a third time on IMAX), hence the slightly disjointed feel of some of the pieces. We might add to this later if we get more ideas.

Kuroro didn't actually meet Jester and Assassin's pilots until several months after the Rhino mission, what with him falling ill with drift hangover immediately after and the other two pairs shipping back to their bases by the time he got well enough to stand being around other people again. He didn't think to ask, and no one felt the need to tell him about the things that got left out of information packs being given to the public, and that was fine with him.

Today, though, they were here for a series of training exercises. Nobody wanted to say out loud that getting _three_ jaeger pairs together for training when they could hardly afford to have active units away from their bases for prolonged periods of time would mean something serious, something along the lines of "they're prepping us in case category fives start popping out of the breach, aren't they," and Kuroro eyed the newcomers and pondered their chances of coming out in one piece should that worst-case scenario ever come to pass.

Little Assassin's pilots were a pair of _teenagers_. The youngest rangers ever to graduate from the Academy, both prodigies, both reportedly very skilled martial artists. Assassin, almost proportionally, was also a bit on the small side, specced for speed and agility at the expense of power, a rather odd focus with the kaiju getting bigger and bigger, but Kuroro would keep those opinions to himself. Skill Hunter, after all, had looked like a patchwork puzzle built out of incompatible jaeger parts, and he and Paku had gotten her to work just fine. In any case, the kids themselves looked all right. Bright and brown-eyed Gon Freecs whose first greeting to him was a huge grin, and his partner, Killua Zaoldyeck, who didn't smile at him so much as give him a shit-eating smirk.

Kuroro blinked at the boy before turning to the other pair--just in time to see one of them snatch at Kurapika's arm and quite literally try to shove his tongue down the blond's throat.

Three things happened then: the kids turned green; Kurapika exploded into motion, grabbing his assailant's shirt, twisting, heaving the heavier, taller man overhead in a perfect shoulder throw--and the smile Pairo had plastered on to welcome the other rangers froze on his face.

"HISOKA!!!" Kurapika roared, and Kuroro couldn't decide whether to be impressed or concerned because he had no idea his partner had the lungs for it. He really couldn't, because on one hand Kurapika had thrown someone close to Kuroro's weight clear across the room and was now launching the kind of highly lethal strike sequence that would have gotten him banned from the sparring mats, and on the other hand, Pairo was still smiling that vacant, seemingly mild-mannered smile that Kuroro had learned to be very wary of.

"Err. Pairo?"

The younger man turned to Kuroro and said, in the most pleasant tones possible, "I am going to kill him."

Kuroro decided that now would be a good time to go restrain his partner before the bloodbath commenced.

 

Kurapika had to brush his teeth twice. And then twice again after training, in a vain attempt to erase the feeling of Hisoka doing his damnedest to swallow his tonsils. It wouldn't go away, and he darkly wondered if there was any way to force the other ranger to retire from the training programme early without anyone knowing. They were all supposed to play nice, after all, and aggravated assault on another Shatterdome's jaeger pilots wasn't the kind of mark he wanted on his record, no matter how worthy the cause would be.

He gargled, spat into the sink, returned his toothbrush and cup in jerky, angry movements. "This training is a bad idea," the blond growled as he stalked out of the bathroom to his bunk. 

Pairo looked up from a distracted contemplation of his tablet. "I can't agree--or disagree," he replied with mild amusement. His fingers ghosted over the raised bumps and groves on the tablet's screen; a few deft strokes brought up charts and figures. Kurapika took one look at the data and scowled.

"You did very well, even though this is the first time you and Kuroro have had to spar with another pair as one unit. Your compatibility will benefit from these exercises, and the marshal's right; you two have to get used to working with them if we'll be conducting more operations like Rhino in the future."

"The marshal doesn't have to deal with Hisoka constantly trying to stick his hands down his pants," Kurapika pointed out acerbically.

The mild expression on his cousin's face faltered, for a brief moment echoing his own disgust for Jester's lead pilot. "Yes, well. You know that he's only doing that to get a rise out of you."

"I noticed that you didn't exactly hold back on expressing your desire to see him castrated, either."

Pairo had the grace to look faintly embarrassed, at least. Kurapika had merely gone with an old-fashioned beatdown. Pairo had somehow produced a pair of industrial shears with the alarmingly clear intention of _gentling_ his cousin's attacker with them.

"... He might leave you alone now, though," Pairo offered tentatively. "He seemed pretty taken with Kuroro's skill."

"He was _turned on_ ," Kurapika pointed out with visible incredulity. "For all I know he might just come after the _both_ of us."

That was as far as he got to describing the amount of trauma involved in sparring against an opponent sporting an obvious erection. They heard a wild yell, a loud bang, and the sound of something hitting the heavy iron bulkhead-style door to their quarters.

Pairo stared at the door, eyes wide with bewilderment. "That was--"

Kurapika yanked the door open and found Kuroro hugging it--or scrabbling at it uncoordinatedly, trying to turn the wheel to open it. His hair was wet, obviously having come from the communal showers, and the shell-shocked expression on his face reminded Kurapika of the first time Hisoka tried to grab his ass.

He should probably be more concerned at the way his partner immediately scrambled into the room, but Kuroro's room was open, obviously the source of the older man's distress. He stepped out to the corridor, drawn to look and investigate by reflex--and regretted his curiosity instantly.

Hisoka, horrifyingly nude, was draped over Kuroro's bunk, lying on his side with his head propped on an elbow. His other hand splayed over his stomach did nothing to hide his state of arousal. He'd been waiting for Kuroro, was what Kurapika managed to figure out, but true to his promiscuous nature, wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Kurapika," the redhead purred, patting the bed he was on, "You're welcome to join me too, if you want."

In the end, only Illumi's timely appearance and intervention saved Kuroro from witnessing his younger partner and his equally enraged cousin beat Hisoka to a pulp. And when Kurapika regained enough of his wits to make the conclusion that Jester's 02 pilot had also saved him and Pairo from the nauseating consequence of accidentally bringing Hisoka off by abusing him while he was stark naked, he sent Illumi a basket of fruits--a veritable luxury with the ongoing food shortage, and nearly impossible to procure. Kuroro begged to be allowed to room with them for the duration of the combined training programme, and Pairo had a discreet chat with Emperor's techs about getting a biometric lock installed on their hatch.


End file.
